


Misty, Fruity Season

by okapi



Category: Jeeves & Wooster, Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse
Genre: Autumn, Fluff, Inspired by Music, Inspired by Poetry, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-21
Updated: 2016-11-21
Packaged: 2018-09-01 06:45:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8613427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okapi/pseuds/okapi
Summary: With a bit of song and a bit of poetry, Bertie and Jeeves agree to spend  the autumn of their lives together. Fluff.





	

**Author's Note:**

> The poem is "To Autumn" by John Keats. The song is "Autumn in New York" (1934).

I was still debating whether the ivories beneath my fingers ought to be tickled or caressed when Jeeves shimmered in with the last whiskey and s. of the day.

“It’s that misty, fruity season again, isn’t it, Jeeves?”

“Yes, sir. Autumn.”

Caressed it was.

I took a sip to warm the ol’ tonsils and sighed. Perfect. Not too much soda, and the whiskey just splashed about a bit.

“’ _Autumn in New York_ ,’” I crooned in as low a register as the light baritone would go without having its license revoked. “’ _Why does it seem so inviting?’_ Now your turn, Jeeves.”

“Delightful though it is, sir, that particular ballad is unknown to me.”

“Oh, well, that’s all right. You be the poet johnny and I’ll be the song and dance man. Minus the Shuffle-off-to-Buffalo, of course, leave that to the Girls of Bali. How does that misty, fruity business go?”

Jeeves hoisted the Viking chin and proclaimed,

> “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
> 
>    Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;”

At Jeeves’s pregnant, if that’s the word I want, and I'm not sure it is, pause, I inclined the old noggin toward the music-maker and sang, “ _Autumn in New York_. _It spells the thrill of first-nighting_.”

Jeeves took his turn.

> “Conspiring with him how to load and bless
> 
>    With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run.”

“Not a bad duet, what?”

“Indeed. The two works are surprisingly complimentary, sir.”

“Say, Jeeves, I’ve been thinking.”

“Yes, sir?”

“The young master is not so young anymore. I mean to say, he might not be a bosom-friend of the maturing sun, but he’s a sight more palsy-walsy than he used to be, what?”

“Time marches on for us all, sir.”

“Remember that Round-the-World Cruise that we never took because you ended up in hospital, sliced up like what’s-his-name? Greek chappie with the eagle pecking out his thingummy every day?”

“Prometheus suffered the removal of his liver, sir. It was my troublesome appendix that was, only once, I am relieved to say, extracted.”

“Yes, well, whenever you decide that it’s time to, you know, stop being the keeper of my, well, my what-is-it, I mean to say, whenever you’re keen to retire from my gainful employ, to say farewell to earning the weekly envelope at the old stand, etcetera, I want you to go on that cruise. Travel as far and as wide that Viking strain of yours bids. At my expense, naturally.”

I gave him a significant glance, and he made that soft cough which always reminds me of sheep clearing its throat of a blade of grass on a distant mountain top. And since I wasn’t wearing a red cummerbund or an Alpine hat or mauve socks or any other crime against Jeeves’s sartorial rule of law, I knew he was about to touch on a topic of a delicate nature.

“Would I be traveling alone, sir?”

“It’s not for me, Jeeves. I’ll not be decanted on one of those blasted ocean-going liners and lugged off hither and thither, especially thither, but I’m given to understand, from someone who eats a frightful lot more fish than I do, that travel is highly educational.”

A Viking eyebrow rose one-eighth of an inch.

“That’s very generous of you, sir.”

With that settled, I felt the best prelude, and that _is_ the word I want, to the next item on the agenda was a sip of whiskey and a musical interlude.

“ _Glittering crowds and shimmering clouds in canyons of steel; they're making me feel: I'm home_.”

And perhaps my gentleman’s personal gentleman, stickler for seemliness that he is, thought it was about time that all good poet johnnys came to the aid of the Jeeveses, or something of that nature.

> “To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
> 
>    And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;”

“As I said, Jeeves, you go on that cruise, fill your lungs with the many tangs of the sea breezes, walk the many decks in your yachting cap, dance with all the Girls of Bali, and if you return and still wish to call #3A Berkeley Mansions, Berkeley Square, London W1 your home, then the welcome mat and the red carpet and any other floor covering your heart desires will be laid out for you.”

I gave him a second significant glance, and he looked like a stuffed frog. I soldiered on.

“I mean, I’m not going to carve over the fireplace ‘Two Lovers Made this Nest,’ but when a man contemplates the misty, fruity season of his life, he dreams of comfort. Soft light, uncorked champagne, good dinner, furniture and company that won’t rub him the wrong way, that is to say, congenial.”

“Ah, _hygge_.”

“Bless you, Jeeves.”

“No, sir. I believe the word you want is ‘ _hygge_.’ It’s a Danish term which translates as ‘cosiness’ or perhaps, more specifically, the comfort and congeniality of which you speak.”

“There’s a word?”

“Indeed, sir.”

“Well, nothing rotten there, then, is there?”

“Quite the opposite, sir.”

“As I was saying, if you return from your sojourn and want to abide here, with that Copenhagen phlegmatic condition and me, then…. _It's autumn in New York that brings the promise of new love. Autumn in New York is often mingled with pain_.”

My voice shook a bit, I’ll admit, but, blessed keeper of the h. and s., his did not falter.

> “To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
> 
>    With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
> 
> And still more, later flowers for the bees,
> 
> Until they think warm days will never cease,
> 
>       For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.”

A rush of emotion filled me. O’er-brimm’d I was, dash it all.

“Because, Jeeves, when the last whiskey is, you know, the _last_ whiskey,” I took a sip of what I hoped was _not_ the last whiskey, “I want you to be one to pour it. And none of this ‘sir’ business. Allow me to care for you the way I did when you were laid up with your insides filleted, and you care for me, well, like you always do. What say you?”

“I say it would be difficult to overpraise you, sir.”

“Well, that’s all right, then, isn’t it? To the misty, fruity season of our lives. _Dreamers with empty hands may sigh for exotic lands; It's autumn in New York; It's good to live it again.”_

And while the lark was on the wing and the snail on the thorn inside the chest of the last of the Woosters, the most beautiful of Viking of them all rent the air with his harvest song.

> “…and now with treble soft
> 
>    The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
> 
>       And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.”


End file.
